Vulnerability and Resilience of Soils under Different Rangeland Use

• Applicants: Professor Dr. Wulf Amelung; Professor Dr. Jörg Löffler
• Co-Applicant: Professor Dr. Chris C. du Preez
• Subject Area: Soil Sciences
• Term: from 2010 to 2017
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 165405448

This project aims to elucidate how sensitive and to which extent soil properties respond to different rangeland management in the grassland and savannah biome of semiarid South Africa, and to figure out to which degree changes of the ecosystems are perceived and caused by farmers’ decisions. We hypothesise that both ecosystems respond differently to rangeland degradation: in the savannah biome bush encroachment leads to an improvement of the soil quality, whereas in grasslands degradation of the soils proceeds with intensified management.

• DFG Programme: Research Units
• Subproject of: FOR 1501: Resilience, Collapse and Reorganisation in Social-Ecological Systems of East- and South Africa's Savannahs
• International Connection: South Africa